Djarum
by Catmoongirl
Summary: He felt like he might never see Damien again if he left now, that he might die out here in the cold and no one would find him and he'd slip out into the field like it was a giant ocean of white that would carry him away into an endless void.
1. Chapter 1

Over the years, Pip learned how to be stealthy. He learned how to hide in every gap and crevasse, how to outrun the larger boys with agile serpentine patterns and flat out sprints across snow-covered hills.

By high school, he had made it onto the track and field team. When he got the news, he felt a lightness devour his heart. For once, he would _belong_. He would be part of a team, he would have teammates, maybe even _friends!_

Three weeks into practices, Pip realized that he was still looking into that world of social acceptance from the outside. His teammates rarely spoke to him, worked with him only when necessary, and muttered things under their breath as they walked away from him.

When he walked into Whistlin' Pete's one day to see them all sitting around enjoying a stack of pizzas without him, all wearing their track jackets, he realized that he hadn't been invited to their shindig on purpose.

Having hidden for a majority of his childhood, Pip knew all of the isolated and empty spots that South Park had to offer. He knew where to go to get away from everyone. There was a spot, behind the Walmart they'd built where Stark's Pond had once stood, just behind the recycling dumpsters in the back, next to a Bobcat, where he had hidden once from Cartman and the other boys. He had even dived into the dumpster once when they drew near. If they found him there, then he could never, ever, go there again. And back then, that spot had been incredibly valuable, filled with a number of useful materials for a variety of projects Pip worked on in his free time to keep occupied (and keep his mind off of the impending doom of the next schooldays).

When Pip realized that he had been living a lie, deceived by a false sense of security, mocked by the same boys who he had called his teammates, this was where he ran. He dashed through the parking lot, ignoring the startled looks of shoppers coming and going, and rounded the corner of the building, stripping off his track jacket and duffel bag and leaving them both lying in the snow.

He wouldn't be needing them anymore, anyway.

He knew he was too old to cry, but the tightness in his chest and the burning in his eyes refused to leave him with his dignity. He was only thankful that he managed to hold back his quiet sobs until he could duck behind the big yellow dumpster and sink down to squat with his back pressed against the metal container.

He buried his head against his arms and pressed his lips tightly together, waiting for this unbearable pressure in his upper chest to uncoil. It was anger and shame and guilt compacted together and welling up until it was bubbling in his throat.

On the precipice of what was sure to be a rather thorough cry, the sound of gravel clicking and rolling across the asphalt to his right abruptly yanked Pip back from that edge.

He lifted his head, a hoarse noise of surprise torn from his throat.

A tall, dark-haired figure stood there, leaning against the other recycling bin, the ball of one booted foot planted against the side for leverage. He looked down at the blond from behind a pair of reflectively tinted sunglasses, a clove cigarette hanging between his lips.

"Damien," Pip said softly, suddenly feeling even worse than before. Now there was a witness to his shame. Mortification swelled up between his ribs from a pit in his abdomen, nearly overpowering his anger.

_Nearly._

Damien said nothing. He kept his hands shoved in his pockets and his eyes on the blond squatting beside him. Though Pip couldn't see his actual eyes behind the sunglasses, he could still _feel _them on him, like the slow burn of a frozen limb warming against the heat of a fire, a not-wholly-unpleasant pins-and-needles sensation that crawled across the nape of his neck and his cheeks with all the speed of a melting glacier.

The end of the dark-haired boy's cigarette slowly burned away, crackling like white noise, flaring with red light with each breath before fading away and leaving ash in its wake. Like a pulse, a heartbeat.

"I…I didn't see you," he muttered nervously, slowly getting to his feet. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. He hadn't shed too many tears; maybe Damien wouldn't even notice.

"What happened to you?" Damien asked, harshly cutting through Pip's desperate hopes. The question came out crisp and simple. It sounded passive, but not entirely disinterested.

Pip bit his lip and resisted latching onto that little shred of compassion that may or may not have been lurking beneath the words. He didn't think he could be blamed for being rather reluctant to trust the Antichrist, after all.

"Nothing," he said as nonchalantly as possible. "What are you doing here?"

Damien scoffed and a touch of a smirk appeared on his lips. One pale hand appeared from the pocket of his black pants, the white skin of his wrist contrasting sharply with the inky material of his full-length sleeves, and plucked his cigarette from his lips. "What does it look like?" he answered, exhaling as he spoke. It reminded Pip of all of the old storybook portrayals of demons and dragons, creatures that billowed smoke and fire from their mouths and nostrils. "What are _you_ doing here?" he asked, pointing his cigarette at the blond before bringing it back up to his lips.

Pip could not come up with a suitable or believable excuse, so he did not answer. Instead, he waited for Damien to come up with an answer of his own.

_Were you _crying_ again, Frenchie? Did your boyfriend dump you? Aw, careful, Frenchie, you'll smear your makeup._

However, after a long, awkward length of silence, Damien was still waiting for a reply. His brow was furrowed in confusion above his sunglasses.

"You shouldn't smoke those things," Pip said, attempting to divert attention away from him once more. "They aren't good for you."

Damien stared at him for a moment and then shrugged. "Life isn't good for you. 100% of people who live end up dying." The clove cigarette, which was almost burned down to the filter, was plucked from between the young man's lips. "Nation's number one killer, you know." He flicked the cigarette away. It landed almost, but not quite, in an oily puddle nearby, still steadily smoking on the asphalt.

The red glow at the end flickered unsteadily, stagnating and dying as it burned up the last of the clove and tobacco.

Pip watched as Damien produced a pack from his back pocket and lit up once more. The dying embers of the discarded cigarette flared up fresh at the tip of the new one.

The stub lay on the asphalt, black and dead like old coal.

Pip said nothing, just watched as each black stick burned down between Damien's lips, watched the tip glow hot red before fading to orange and then to grey and black as it turned to ash and crumbled to the ground.

A pulse. A heartbeat.

Damien looked away from him, out across the large empty field that had once held trees and shrubs but had been plowed down for the giant superstore.

After a minute of neither speaking, Pip sat back down again and stared out as well, but the sight of that cycle of the swell and ebb of glowing embers always drew his gaze back towards Damien.

A few minutes later, Pip realized that the tightness and pressure was gone, leaving him feeling awkward and uncertain. He wasn't sure what was lingering in his chest now, something bittersweet and smoky.

It was the secondhand smoke of pungent clove cigarettes and it would stick inside of his lungs for days afterward, leaving him feeling almost pleasantly numb inside each time he took a breath.

* * *

><p>Pip quit the track and field team and tried out instead for the school play. They were putting on a performance of <em>Macbeth<em> and Pip managed to land the part of Banquo. He lost himself in pretending he was someone else and the theatre geeks were much more accepting of him than the jocks had been. Even if they still treated him as somewhat of an outsider, at least they made the effort to inform him of cast parties when they held them.

When he had received his first invite from Wendy Testaburger, he had been very anxious and excited. Part of him very much wanted to go, felt almost _obligated_ to go. But another part thought about everything that could go wrong, the possibility of it being a huge prank, and of some gnawing from an empty space somewhere below his ribs.

Even so, he went. Wendy's family had a very nice house, people said "hello" to him, but nothing much more than that. Wendy tried to hold a conversation with him but Eric Cartman butted in with what Pip considered rather pitiful and pathetic attempts to win the young lady over by insulting Pip and anyone else within reach of his hurtful tongue.

Pip would forever loathe the fact that Cartman was the only student large enough to move some of the scenery and props around. Ever since he had taken up body-building, he had gotten bigger and bigger and, despite Pip's prediction, it only made him look all the more unattractive.

After standing in the corner awkwardly with his drink, which he suspected had been spiked after his head began feeling fuzzy after only half a glass, Pip quietly slipped out the door, reminding himself to thank Wendy later for the invite.

The party had been a bust, but Pip decided he didn't want to let the rest of the night go to waste when he reached the 7-11 that lay a few blocks from his house. He ambled through the garishly lit aisles of the local convenience store.

He dumped a packet of his favorite crisps and a soda onto the countertop at the register.

"Will that be all?" the pimply-faced cashier asked with a bored expression.

Pip opened his mouth and stopped, looking at the boxes behind the counter. Then, he pointed at a box near the top of the shelves.

"I'll take one of those."

Pip walked around to the alley and produced the box from his pocket. It was black and crisply labeled with the brand Djarum Black. The red triangle in place of the "a" in black glared up at him like a warning. Pip opened the box and sniffed curiously at the contents of the box.

The scent was comfortingly familiar. It left something reminiscent of guilt lingering within him. He snapped the box shut and walked over to a metal barrel that was nearly overflowing with garbage and refuse. He held it out over the barrel, but found his fingers resisting when he tried to drop the pack into the pile.

Pip frowned, a quiet whine rolling up from the back of his throat.

He shouldn't have these. This was impolite...indecent. It felt like stalking, spying, an invasion of...something.

But why should it? Millions of people probably smoked clove cigarettes. He was just curious. That was all.

They'd kill him though. They weren't good for you, after all.

Then again, neither was living.

Pip felt himself flush and in a split second, hurried decision, he shoved the cigarette pack deep into his pocket and strode off.

As he rounded the corner onto his street, he tore open the crisps, shoveling them into his mouth until the taste finally covered up the dry bite that had developed on the back of his tongue.

* * *

><p>A week later, the cigarettes still remained in Pip's coat pocket, partially crushed, completely untouched. Pip didn't think he'd ever smoke them, but he kept them there. They were a reassuring weight against his hip and, if he focused, he almost thought he could smell them around him.<p>

But that thought left him feeling jumpy and nervous whenever Damien was around. It wasn't until recently that he had begun to realize just how close they sat near each other in class, how much they indirectly interacted. Every time they got within a few feet of each other, Pip began to panic, certain that if Damien came too close, he'd smell the cigarettes on him and he'd know that Pip had bought them and...and...well, that just wasn't a very good thing, was it? It was...weird, creepy.

A few days later, Pip realized that he and Damien did not speak to each other _at all_ at school. Their brief exchange behind the Walmart was the most they had said to each other in years and the most anyone had said to Pip without spitting at him in the same amount of time.

With that realization came a strange urge that ate away at him all day and all night. It whispered to him during class, drew his gaze across the room towards a specific head of dark hair. It murmured to him at night, tempting him with suggestions of belonging and affirmation.

And against his better judgements, Pip let it worm it's way past his defenses, let it ingrain itself into his veins and pores and flourish there.

Pip got invited to the next cast party, this time at Cartman's house.

It was more than the location that led Pip to declining the invite.

Instead, after rehearsal, Pip found himself heading towards Walmart, bundled up more than usual against the bitter cold with a lumpy, multicolored scarf wrapped around his neck. He was not expecting to find anything there, not really hoping for anything either. He just longed for the familiarity, for the traces of warmth, of the memory that lingered there.

Even so, he felt his heart sink just a little when he arrived to find no one standing behind the dumpsters. To distract himself, he rifled around in the bins and pulled some pieces that caught his eye, labels and colored cardboard that felt right to him. He would make something with them, but he wasn't certain what yet.

Then, he sat back against the bin and looked out across the field, breath fogging in front of him as it slipped through the scarf across his mouth.

The emptiness, the openness lay before him. He felt like a pin dropping would resonate forever in a crystalline, clear tone within that void.

Being alone in the silence was comforting in a way it had been for years, but something new came with it today. It sent his thoughts buzzing about in his skull, a quiet hum that grew until Pip was so accustomed to it that he didn't notice it anymore, didn't notice as it lulled him to sleep, head drooping forward until his chin hit his chest and he dozed.

* * *

><p>Pip awoke with a start the moment his half-awake brain realized that he had nodded off. It was growing dark around him as the sun began to sink beneath the horizon in the distance. His eyes darted back and forth, panting quickly as he leapt to his feet.<p>

"Bad dream?"

He yelped in surprise and wheeled around to face the source of the voice.

Damien stood before him, wearing a heavy black trenchcoat, a fine, cream-colored scarf wrapped around his neck, and sunglasses over his eyes.

In the half-light of dusk, Damien's face was lit up by the glow of his cigarette and mirrored back in the lenses of his glasses, reflecting Pip's image back at himself in oily shades of dark orange.

Once again, Pip saw the classical image of a demon rise up in his mind's eye. Damien seemed a seductive blend of ancient and contemporary.

Pip opened and closed his mouth noiselessly, at a loss for words.

"You'll catch your death out here," Damien said, sparing him the opportunity to speak. "Thought you _had_ died at first. I shook you but you didn't wake up."

"You-you did?" Pip asked, eyes locked on the image of his own reflection staring gracelessly back, cursing the squeak that popped up in his voice in the middle of the question. He didn't recall anyone shaking him. His slumber had been nothing but dreamless, aimless floating.

"Trying to fucking kill yourself or something?" Damien remarked, a little more malicious this time. He turned to look out at the field and Pip felt some sort of trance break as his own reflection slipped away from his gaze. "Pretty shitty place to off yourself."

Pip stared at Damien's form for a few seconds and then he took a step forward. "Do you think…" Damien turned to look at him and Pip caught his reflection in his glasses again. It drew him in, made his head spin, seeing himself like that. He looked almost…like a different person, someone he didn't recognize.

"Yes?" Damien asked and shaking Pip out of the spell once more.

"Do you think I could…try one of those?" He asked, gesturing to the cigarette between Damien's lips.

Damien frowned, pressing his lips together in thought.

At first he hesitated on an answer, the tightness in his face making him look horribly torn, but then he said, "You shouldn't. They're not good for you. They'd end up killing you."

Pip's face fell and he looked down when Damien turned his eyes away again. He felt somewhat rebuffed, but something inside of him bloomed forth, warm and excited. He felt like he had just been invited to a party and that he had a very long time to decide whether or not he wanted to go.

Pip picked up his bag from the ground and made to leave, but when he lifted his head to look back at Damien, something made his heart seize in fear.

He felt like he might never see Damien again if he left now, that he might die out here in the cold and no one would find him and he'd slip out into the field like it was a giant ocean of white that would carry him away into an endless void. He stepped closer to Damien and settle down against the same dumpster, close to Damien's legs.

"It's cold out, I hope you don't mind," he said, trying to sound casual.

Damien stared down at him, an awkward tenseness in his limbs. He looked taken aback from Pip's perspective, but it could have just been a trick of the light. There was a moment of hesitation and then Damien let out an odd bark of laughter, lifting his head.

"Why the hell would I mind?" he said, his voice strange. He looked down again. "What's in the bag?"

"Craft stuff. I like to make things out of recyclable material."

Pip felt his cheeks heat, two points of contrast on his body in the winter chill. That was such an embarrassing admission. What the hell had compelled him to say it?!

"Oh," Damien said and then shrugged, like he was shrugging off a giant weight from Pip's shoulders. "Cool."

They both stared out into the night as the last sliver of sun finally disappeared from the sky and neither of them said anything for a long time.

When the cold became too much to take, Damien crushed his last cigarette beneath the heel of his boot and pushed off the dumpster. "It's getting late." He turned to face the blond. "I'll take you home."

"Oh, no, I can walk!" Pip insisted, getting to his feet.

Damien shook his head. "You shouldn't be walking around alone this late. There are a lot of weirdos around here."

Pip bit his lip. He felt like the world was spinning too fast, that something had started rolling into motion and he wasn't ready for it. "I…I don't know if I should…"

Damien sighed and took the blond by the elbow. "Look, I promise I'm not going to steal your soul or slice your throat or anything."

That was not very reassuring. Even so, Pip shivered as another piercing wind cut through his worn jacket and the dark stretches beyond the Walmart parking lot did look incredibly threatening.

"O…okay."

Damien's car was a sleek, almost pristine red Mustang. While the outside of the car looked brand-new, the inside was visibly lived-in. It smelled heavily of clove cigarettes, which had Pip feeling somewhat drugged the moment he buckled his seat belt, and the car was littered with cigarette stubs, old CDs, and empty cans of all sorts.

The moment the car roared to life, the inside suddenly blared with loud music that bombarded Pip's senses with grated, twisted, warbling sounds all set to a hypnotic rhythm. Damien immediately depressed the volume dial and the music stopped as quickly as it had started.

"Forgot to turn it down," Damien muttered, almost apologetically.

The ride to Pip's house was awkward, the blond tensing whenever he caught the movement of Damien's hand out of the corner of his eye, but each time he was only changing gears.

When they rolled to a stop outside of Pip's house, the blond muttered a quick thank-you and emerged hurriedly from the car. His parents would definitely question him being driven home in such a car, and Pip wasn't quite ready to answer any kind of probing questions that even he couldn't answer himself right now.

He stood on the curb for a moment though, looking at Damien through the passenger window, feeling like he should say something else but not knowing what.

"Ah," Damien began, leaning over and, to Pip's amazement, slipping his sunglasses off. His eyes looked black in the streetlight above Pip's head. For a split second, Pip thought his whole face looked rather graceful, and then he quickly chalked the notion up to merely having gone so long without seeing it. "I guess I'll see you at school," he finished haltingly.

Then with an uncertain nod that Pip was rather baffled by, Damien straightened in his seat and drove away.

Pip went inside, told his parents he was out gathering more craft supplies, and went up to his room.

He changed out of his clothes and into his pajamas before dumping the contents of his bag all over his crafting table next to the window.

As he stared at them, each piece slowly began to put themselves together into a vague, fuzzy final product in his mind.


	2. Chapter 2

The theatre club was one of the central hubs of gossip at Park County High School. Having devoted their lives to drama, they weren't too shabby at stirring up some of it in their own lives. Kyle, who had been cast as Malcolm, had been found making out with Stan in the dressing room during rehearsal. Wendy had handled it all rather calmly, having confided to a few that she had "seen it coming all along." Cartman ramped up his attempts at wooing her in the vilest ways possible.

Kenny had done the unthinkable and "proposed" to Butters during a cast party, literally getting down on one knee and asking the blond boy to be his boyfriend with a ring and everything. Pip was somewhat sad that he hadn't been there to see that. He had fancied Butters once long ago and he was very happy to know that the rather awkward and self-conscious young man had found someone to care for him.

The gossip reached Pip's ears and drifted on its own way. The comings and goings of the other students didn't really concern him and so he was content to simply sit back, watch, and enjoy the show.

But then one day, he overheard murmurs of something that left him feeling twinges of something tight and hot in his throat.

Anger. Frustration.

Token whispered to Clyde that he heard that Damien had slept with Tweek.

Pip tried to rationalize his abrupt swellings of emotion as a knee-jerk reaction. So what if Damien had slept with Tweek? He'd probably slept with more than half of the female student body as well. It was no secret that Damien was considered attractive by most of the students at the high school, even if many of them didn't really associate with him. He knew that many of the female students would gladly sell their souls to Damien in exchange for having him as their prom date.

At home, the information hissed at him from the back of his brain as he stared at the roughly constructed item on his craft table. It was half finished by now, he knew just what he was making at this point.

The next day at school, as he came back from the shop building after lunch (where the shop teacher kindly let him get away from the torment of his classmates in the cafeteria), he caught sight of Craig, Tweek, and Damien in the teacher's parking lot behind the school.

Craig had pushed himself into Damien's space, staring him down. Even though he was half a foot shorter than Damien, he showed no signs of intimidation.

Feeling afraid to get into the middle of anything, but unable to turn around or proceed forward without being seen, Pip crouched down behind a car and watched.

"…don't know what you think you're playing at," Craig growled menacingly.

"Ah! Craig, please! Don't!" Tweek exclaimed, tugging at the young man's arm.

"You should listen to your boyfriend," Damien said evenly, eyes narrow in disdain. "You have no reason to fight me."

"I have every fucking reason to fight you!" Craig shouted, giving him a shove. Damien hit the wall of the school and glared at the boy standing in front of him. "You put your filthy hands all over him-"

"Craig! Stop! It's not his fault!"

Damien laughed and stood up straight, pushing off the brick of the school. "He's right, Tucker. _He_ came to _me._ You want to be angry at someone, why don't you start with him?"

Tweek made a high pitched noise, clutching at his own hair, and Craig launched forward, pinning Damien against the wall, a hand fisted in the neck of his shirt. Pip was startled to see that Damien made no move to hit Craig, made no move to fight. He simply stared unflinchingly into Craig's eyes, even as the teen leaned in until he was inches from Damien's face to hiss at him, "You have no idea how the hell I feel about him. You stay the fuck out this, you piece of shit. If I ever see you come near him, if I see you touch him, I will rip your fucking nuts off and shove them down your throat."

As if right on cue, the bell rang and Craig gave Damien one last shove before releasing him. "Come on, Tweek, we're leaving." He grabbed Tweek by the hand and stalked away with the blond. Pip saw their fingers laced tightly together as they left.

Pip waited before emerging from his hiding spot. Damien hadn't moved yet, hunched over and leaning against the wall. He threaded one hand into his hair, clutching the dark locks in what looked like a painful grip.

Then, after a few intensely silent moments, he straightened and strode off back towards the school.

Pip felt a twinge of inexplicable pity for Damien in that moment and he hated himself for it.

* * *

><p>Christmas was approaching fast but winter break didn't start until the 23rd. Nearly everyone who lived in South Park didn't travel for the holidays though, since everyone always lived within 20 minutes of each other.<p>

Pip had already seen people exchanging gifts with one another at school. Stan had gotten Kyle a set of mittens that looked like he'd knit himself. Cartman got Wendy lacy underwear and Wendy had punched him in the stomach in return. Pip noticed a very small Hello Kitty charm hanging from Butters' cell phone that must have been a gift from Kenny. Craig had made Tweek a coffee mug in art class and painted it with fluffy white clouds.

On Pip's crafting table, a collage of cardboard pieces and card stock was put together in a large sheet. It wouldn't be long before it was finished.

He hadn't realized what he had been making and who it was for until that moment.

Irony was so very, very cruel.

The finished gift waited in a small pocket of his school bag for days as he waited for the right moment to give it. While the other students made a public show of their gift exchange, something about Pip's gift seemed private, like a dark secret.

And what better place to give it than the spot that held the secret?

When Pip came around the corner of the Walmart, Damien seemed almost surprised to see him.

"Ah, hello," he said almost too brightly, giving the other boy a little wave.

Damien jerked his head upward in acknowledgement. "Hey."

An awkward silence languished between them, relishing in the building tension. There was something off here, something cracked and damaged. It was going to break with all the weight bearing on it, bearing on the both of them.

"Thanks…for the ride the other day," Pip blurted out, feeling himself blush and pulling his scarf higher up on his face to cover his cheeks.

"Don't worry about it," the other boy replied, looking somewhat flustered, his hand waving off the gratitude in a jerking, ungainly motion.

It was so unusual, seeing Damien breaking composure, even for a moment.

The silence came back, practically purring in contentment at the strained feeling in the air.

"So…back to do some more dumpster diving?" Damien joked to break the silence, lighting up what appeared to be his third cigarette based on the number of butts littering the space around his feet.

Pip frowned. All of a sudden, he didn't want Damien to be here. This was _his_ space, who gave Damien the right to judge him?

"You're one to talk," Pip snapped back, a little harsher than necessary, "loitering around back here like one of those bloody Goth kids."

Damien's expression went stony. "What the hell is wrong with you? Didn't know you were on the rag today, Frenchie." He pushed off of the dumpster and waved a hand in front of him. "I've got every right to stand here. If you don't like it, why don't you just traipse on home?"

Pip strode forward angrily and poked the boy in the chest. "No, why don't _you_ just go home? No one asked you to butt your way into my life."

Damien laughed coldly and gave Pip a shove. A bolt of fear ran through the blond when he realized that he had just been pushed by the _son of Satan_. He wondered if he might burst into flame and disappear, leaving nothing more than a pile of ash and coal behind. But then, Damien was talking again and Pip could focus on nothing else but the sight of his own angry face in his sunglasses. "Who the hell said I cared about you? I'm standing here because of _me_," he pointed at himself, "you little brat. No one ever said anything about any of this being for _you._" Pip felt his heart sink, his limbs go numb. Damien's expression of anger suddenly went hollow, not changing, but the intensity quickly draining from his eyes. For a split second, Pip thought he saw a look of discomfort pass over Damien's face. "Get over yourself and get the fuck out of my face."

Damien turned and leaned against the dumpster again, completely ignoring Pip's presence beside him, refusing to acknowledge the cold glower being directed at him, the empty gaze pinning him in place.

Then, unsure of why the words slipped from his mouth, unable to reign in his curiosity, his bewildering urge to fill some sort of dark void within himself, Pip asked, in a soft, muted voice that was almost carried away by the biting winds,

"I heard that you slept with Tweek."

For a second that felt like ages, Damien said nothing. A tight look passed over his face, as if he were trying to hold back something fierce and destructive. He turned and looked at Pip and the blond felt like a butterfly pinned to a card beneath that gaze that he could not see, could not read, could not shield himself against.

"So what if I did?" the dark-haired boy said in a dangerously quiet tone. "So what if I slept with the little freak?" He took his glasses off in a sharp motion and Pip felt a gasp catch in his throat. Up close, he could see the subtle hints of color in Damien's coal-black eyes, how there were shots of red and deep orange close to his pupils. "What the hell does it matter to you?"

Pip held his gaze, watched his eyes closely as the colors there spread and contracted around his dark pupils. Damien was searching him and Pip was searching Damien just as carefully in return. Whatever Pip found would make him pity. Whatever Damien found would give him the advantage.

Well, Pip was not about to give Damien the satisfaction, and so he turned and strode angrily away, stopping only once to turn around and fix Damien with an angry glare. Without taking his eyes off him, he dug into his bag and pulled out something thin and rectangular and threw it down into the snow before turning and stalking off.

Damien let the thing sit there for a half an hour before his curiosity got the better of him and he went over to pick it up.

He brushed the snow off of it and turned it over in his hands.

It was a simple wallet, made of a variety of labels and textured cardboard, all laminated together and folded into shape. The front of the wallet proudly displayed a Djarum Black cigarette label.

Damien felt something sickly sweet curl in his gut and, against his better judgement, he slipped the wallet into his pocket before he walked out to his car, head bowed against the cutting wind. He paused with his hand on the door handle, an annoying dull ache mixing in with the saccharine sensation in his stomach. He grit his teeth against the feeling and cursed under his breath before he wrenched the door open and climbed into the car.

He slammed the door shut, wrenched the key in the ignition, and sped off back towards his apartment.

* * *

><p>If Damien had to pick a word to describe his thoughts over the next few days, it would be "conflicted."<p>

Conflicted.

On the one hand, he was pissed off that Pip would take his personal matters so...well, _personally_. But on the other hand, the cloying, poisonous soup in the pit of his stomach that Damien had guessed was probably something like guilt or regret continued to hang around and nauseate him.

A few times, Damien tried to throw the wallet away. And each time, he felt some strange attachment to it. It felt like something he shouldn't have, and being who he was, that made it all the more appealing to keep. He wondered if Pip would be angry to know that he still had it. Then again, keeping it suggested that it meant something to him and, by extension, that Pip meant something to him.

Either way, the thing was a thorn in his side and he felt powerless to do anything other than sit back and relish in the pain.

The apple, apparently, did not fall far from tree, because much like his father, whenever something bothered him, Damien tended to ignore it with work. He skipped school on Thursday and drove all the way out to Lakewood in the afternoon. There was a little bar on the edge of town that people frequented to get away from it all.

And Damien was more than happy to be there for them when they came to call.

Business was slow at first and Damien contented himself with a few drinks. Working without a buzz was no fun at all. At least _that_ was something he and his dad tended to differ on. The bartender asked for his ID and Damien produced one. A forgery, but it had been crafted by the best agents of Hell so it was highly unlikely that a bartender from Colorado would know the difference.

The first customer was a haggard businessman. Too much nagging from his wife, Damien suspected. He sat himself down next to the man and began chatting him up.

"Ah, rough day, huh?" he started, casual and friendly.

"You don't know the half of it," the man groaned, downing his first shot and slumping over the bar. His hair looked a mess. Damien resisted the urge to sneer at him.

"Normally, I run home to my girlfriend," Damien continued, waving his hand to the bartender to signal for another beer, "but sometimes, you just have to _get away_, you know?"

The man nodded. "I love Julie, but she just doesn't appreciate how hard I work for her and the kids."

Boom. Just like that, he was right in the palm of the Antichrist's metaphorical hand.

"I know what you mean," the dark-haired youth said, patting the man on the back and then keeping his hand there. He resisted the grin that wanted to shoot up onto his face at the sensation of the energy passing from him and into the man sitting beside him. He adored the feeling of Wrath, the hot, fiery nerve-tingling burn it left behind as it transferred from the Prince of Darkness to the unwitting mortal. "My girlfriend, Penny, she's got quite a mouth on her. Sexy as hell when she's angry, but if she starts getting bitchy with me, sometimes I just have to remind her of her place."

The man looked up at him with uncomprehending eyes. "But...but I couldn't-"

Damien gripped the man's shoulder a little tighter. "You're doing your best, aren't you?" he interrupted, a little irritated. "You're working your ass off every day and she isn't happy with that. You really think that's fair of her? She's attacking you, isn't she? You're allowed to fight back."

"I...I am," the man replied, realization dawning in his eyes.

"You aren't doing it to hurt her. You're doing it because you love her," Damien continued in a velvety smooth tone.

"Yeah." The man straightened up. "Yeah! She needs to back off and let me do my job! Her place is in the kitchen, not ordering me around!" The bartender placed a beer and another shot down in front of them and the man threw it back and slammed the glass down on the bar. "Thanks, buddy! I appreciate it!" He clapped Damien on the shoulder, allowing a little more of that fury to rub off on him before he exited the bar, a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

Damien grinned as the man departed but then felt a sharp pain prodding at the center of his chest as he turned back towards his beer. Frowning, he took a long swig of the amber brew sitting before him and focused his attention on the next group of unwitting victims that passed into the bar.

Work was steady for most of the night. One girl was mourning her lack of status at work. A subtle suggestion that she should simply kill her coworkers had her leaving with joy on her face.

One timid man at the bar explained that he was the designated driver for his friends tonight and that he really didn't drink. Eight years of sobriety went straight down the drain with just a little bit of Damien persuading him that "one drink couldn't hurt." The group never made it home that night. Their front of their car became rather intimate with a telephone pole.

A couple that had been together for six years both came out and accused one another of having an affair and broke up, even though the man had shelled out $6,000 on a wedding ring the day before. Damien pleaded the fifth on that one, since both of them _were_ cheating on one another and it wasn't his fault that they had poor timing.

Everyone else who hadn't run in to the rather unfamiliar and mysterious dark-haired boy sitting at the end of the bar left feeling a little less content than they had before they had entered. Some felt jilted, others felt prideful, and still others felt that their friends or relations were hiding something from them.

When Damien left at closing time with the request that the bartender put it on his tab (which the man would conveniently forget about the next day), he should have felt rather accomplished. It had been a very productive day at work, after all.

Instead, however, as drove back towards the town of South Park, he felt only an odd, prickling sensation curling and constricting around in the space between his ribs, a tightness demanding release even as it continually collapsed in on itself. It felt like a hole was trying to tear open in his chest, to release some dark and evil creature from its depths.

When he got back to his apartment, he stumbled to his knees on the bathroom floor and vomited into the toilet bowl until there was nothing left in his stomach.

As the dry heaves finally dissolved, he leaned his head against the toilet seat, breathing slow and laboriously, eyes closed.

In his pocket, he could feel the light weight of the laminated wallet against his thigh. Behind his eyelids, he saw violent explosions of fire and smoke. For a moment, he thought he heard frightened screams.

He opened his eyes shoved his head back into the bowl as another wave of dry heaves wracked his body.


	3. Chapter 3

Pip was an expert at dealing with disappointment and rejection. He was well versed in the tradition of putting on a happy face even as he ached inside.

It was simple psychology. If he continued to _act _happy, he would eventually _be _happy. The method had served him well over the years and he knew from experience that the alternative, showing that he had been hurt, opened him up to even more pain from the rest of his peers.

Yes, in these situations, it was best to close one's self off. Put on a smile and face the world with his head held high.

Of course, he wouldn't be able to visit the Walmart anymore, but the Goth kids had never hassled him before for rifling through the school's recycling bins after classes. Granted, half of the contents of the school's recyclables was half-eaten food and sticky wads of gum, but Pip would simply have to make do.

The first day was often the most difficult and, at first, Pip felt relieved to find that Damien was not in class on Thursday morning. He spent the first half of the day trying to keep his spirits up, taking advantage of the opportunity to pretend that nothing at all had happened.

He spent the second half of the day feeling anxious, tapping his pencil against his paper and glancing at the door, waiting, watching.

The dress rehearsal for the play was no better; Craig followed Tweek around during the whole rehearsal, despite the drama teacher's orders for him to leave and let her get on with her class. That alone made Pip paranoid enough to believe that Damien might suddenly jump out from behind a curtain or a piece of scenery just to catch him when his defenses were down.

Relief had quickly transformed into agitation. Every minute that passed was another minute Pip wondered if Damien would walk through the door, every minute was another minute he wasted wondering where the Hell the Antichrist could be.

Pip's well-crafted mask of a smile began to deteriorate. Even when he wasn't around, Damien was still making his life miserable. Somehow, he had found a way around Pip's self-defense mechanism. He had seeped too deeply into his senses, he had been allowed to fester in Pip's subconscious for too long.

Eventually, he could no longer stand the bitter taste of the question waiting on his tongue. At the break, he sauntered up to Token and Clyde and asked quietly, "Pardon me, gents, but might you know where Damien was today? Do you know if he's ill or if he has moved away?"

Clyde and Token looked at one another and shrugged. "Dunno. He probably cut," Clyde answered. "Craig's out for blood. He might be laying low."

"Fucker better lay low," Craig spat from a few feet away where he sat with Tweek and Butters who were reviewing the lighting sequence for the fourth act. Tweek twitched but clung to his boyfriend as the dark-haired teen put an arm around him. "Why the fuck do you care, Pip?" He narrowed his eyes at the blond. "What, are you his little minion? He make you do the dirty work, Frenchie?"

Pip laughed thinly and beamed a smile at Craig that left him feeling as if he'd pulled about six muscles in his face. "Oh, no, I just thought it was rather odd for him to be gone so close to the end of the semester."

Craig glared at him for a few tense seconds before Wendy came in and clapped her hands, announcing that they would be starting up the second half of dress rehearsal in five minutes. As the cast and crew began to mill about and prepare to return to the stage, Pip overheard Craig mutter as he brushed by him,

"He can stay gone for all I care."

Pip had frozen on the spot, a sense of dread washing over him, sending shivers down his spine. For the rest of the night, he could not shake the sensation that Damien had finally slipped into that white sea. But what really sent fear shooting into his heart was the thought that it had been all his fault.

* * *

><p>Pip was exchanging his biology book for his calculus book at his locker when the sight of a familiar face out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Damien was striding down the hall, straight towards him.<p>

Pip's hand tightened on the door of his locker and he prepared to turn and run, but then he caught a closer look at Damien's face. Without the sunglasses, he could see his eyes clearly, really looking _at him_, not at someone else, or the front of the classroom, or at his notes. They looked...confused, startled. He looked as if he hadn't slept well at all, his hair a mess and his face sallow and faintly greasy.

Pip swallowed with some difficulty and closed his locker, turning to face Damien as he drew closer and closer.

Something that might have been a smile made its way onto Damien's face-

But then a blue blur shot out of the hallway and slammed headlong into Damien, sending him flying into the lockers.

"Damien!" Pip exclaimed, without intending to, staring in shock as Damien slumped down to the floor.

The blue blur was actually Craig Tucker, who was now standing over Damien, trembling with rage, eyes alight with fury. "What the fuck did I tell you?!" Craig bellowed, pointing a shaking finger at Damien's slumped figure. To hear and see such emotion from Craig was almost terrifying. Craig had never visibly gotten angry with anyone at school, or at least in front of Pip. He had always been rather calm, if somewhat easily irritated. His usual response to anger and annoyance, however, was a middle finger and a biting comment in his monotone voice.

This was a side of Craig that Pip had never seen before. And to think what had caused such a personality to manifest...

Damien was struggling to his feet as students began to flock around the two. Pip rushed forward and tried to shove in close, to see what was going on, but he was continuously crowded back by the people around him. He raised himself up onto his tip toes until he could see Craig and Damien's heads over the swarm of students.

Damien wiped his hand over his mouth and looked down at the red smear his split lower lip left behind. His tongue came out to lick over the gash, like a snake tasting the air, bearing his teeth in a mirthless smile. "You've got to be fucking kidding me," he snarled. "It's a _project_, you asshole!"

"I don't care!" Craig shouted back, stepping forward until they were toe to toe. "I said stay away," he continued, lowering his voice to a menacing murmur, "and I meant stay away."

Damien scoffed. "Well, I don't really give a fuck what you say. He's my math partner and we're going to have to speak to each other. You have a problem with it, you deal with it. I don't have time to put up with your temper tantrums." He put a hand on Craig's shoulder to move around him and something went abruptly and painfully taut in the air.

Craig pulled his fist back and let loose a punch on Damien's jaw that resounded with a sickening crack. The entire crowd erupted in excited shouts and frightened screams that dissolved into chants of "_Fight! Fight! Fight!"_

Pip began to frantically shove his way forward. His blood was rushing in his ears, he couldn't even hear his own voice, only aware that he was shouting something above the din. Every blow that the two landed on one another seemed as loud as a grenade. Everyone around him was jumping and shouting and each step forward seemed to require more and more force until Pip suddenly came out inside of the ring of students, nearly falling over at the unexpected lack of resistance.

Damien had Craig pinned to the floor, punching him in the stomach as Craig's hand yanked violently at the Antichrist's hair.

"Damien! Stop!" Pip threw himself at Damien, pulling at his shoulders as hard as he could. "Stop it!" He winced as a blow grazed his cheek and sent his newsboy cap tumbling from his head; he could not tell if it was Craig or Damien, but suddenly, Damien's form was unresisting and weightless and Pip had him shoved powerfully back against the lockers, away from Craig.

The crowd fell silent. Pip stood, frozen to the spot, acutely aware of his own body, painfully anchored down in the moment and what he had just done. Only inches of highly charged air lay between Damien and himself, buzzing like lightning just waiting to spark. The blond kept his head down, staring at Damien's rapidly rising and falling chest. His eyes latched on to a barely perceptible spot of blood near the left shoulder, his fingers twitching around Damien's lax forearms. He could not look up, he could not move. That would mean acknowledging that he was here, that he was standing this close, that he had acted on a fear deep inside of him, one that cried out "Don't leave me alone! Don't forget about me!"

And Damien could not look down, could only stare ahead with wide and startled eyes as Pip kept him pinned to the lockers. The delicious heat of bloodlust became sharp and bitter shame, like swallowing shards of glass.

A heavy drop of spit and blood escaped the corner of his mouth and, had Damien had the courage to, he would have looked down to see it land on the lapel of Pip's jacket, staining the pastel purple fabric with a wine-dark blotch.

Damien had never felt it so intensely before, had never been so overwhelmed by guilt he could not fathom. It left him feeling as if the world had been upended and all he knew was that if Pip stepped back from him, he would plummet into the endless sky.

Craig was being bodily restrained by Token, Clyde, and Kenny behind him. "Fuck you, Frenchie! I knew you were kissing his ass all along!" he shouted as blood dripped from his nose, breaking Pip out of the trance that the frightening adrenaline high had put him into.

"What on Earth is going on here?!" Ms. Baker shrieked as she strode down the hall. Mr. Phillips and Principal Victoria were not far behind. The crowd of students went scattering, running to their classes. Even Token, Clyde, and Kenny made themselves scarce, leaving Craig slouching, staring sulkily at the floor (although one eye was nearly swollen shut).

Pip gave a little gasp as Damien suddenly shook him off. "Get off," he muttered. Pip watched as he wiped at his mouth again, as the back of his hand swept away the blood welling up against his swollen lip. "Why the hell did you stop me?"

Tentatively, Pip met Damien's eyes. Damien wasn't looking at him, though. He was watching Principal Victoria approaching with an uncomfortable look on his face, as if he had eaten something unpleasant. His jaw was turning a nasty purple on the right side.

Pip floundered. "I…I just-"

"I didn't ask you to help me," Damien grumbled. Even as he pushed Pip aside, he didn't seem to possess the conviction to be forceful about it. Before Pip even had a chance to say anything, Damien made a run for the exit at the end of the hall, leaving Mr. Phillip shouting his name after him.

* * *

><p>After being questioned by the principal and a handful of students and classmates, Pip was somewhat relieved that people seemed to have begun to forget about the fight. They still talked, of course, because it was a pretty huge scandal in general, the quasi-love triangle that had taken shape over the past month or so.<p>

But then, there were people murmuring that somehow, Pip was involved in it all, in a rather ridiculous variety of ways. Some said he had orchestrated the entire thing, made up the whole rumor about Damien sleeping with Tweek just to get back at Craig for stringing his clothes up on the flagpole back in sixth grade. Others said that it was true, that Damien had slept with Tweek, but only because he was a replacement for Pip. There were other outlandish whispers that flew through the hallways like wildfire, involving things like witchcraft and ransom and jealousy, and Pip began to get sick of dress rehearsals because suddenly all of the rumors seemed far too similar to Macbeth.

Craig sulked around the school, eye sockets darkened to a sickening purple, a split set on the bridge of his nose to straighten it. Craig sat just two seats behind him in biology and his nostrils made a distracting whistling noise when he breathed, a constant reminder of his simmering hate.

Pip counted it as a small victory that no one seemed to have ever spotted him with Damien behind the Walmart. He wasn't sure how long Damien was suspended for, but honestly, no matter how long it was, he couldn't help but feel a little relieved. Sure, the first few days had been laden with guilt and worry and a feeling of something left undone that was probably just wound-up nerves. But after a week, things began to settle into a comfortable rhythm, sort of as if Damien had never been in Pip's life to begin with. He hadn't gone to the recycling dumpsters in days; his father had brought him back a bag full of colorful sea glass from his business trip to New England and he had found large sheets of corrugated cardboard in the recycling bin on the curb next door. He went about his day without worrying whether or not Damien might show up somewhere unexpectedly, staring at him with those dark eyes with fire in their depths. He stopped feeling anxious and nervous, stopped feeling like something was winding itself tighter and tighter in the pit of his stomach. He could think straight again and soon, he had even forgotten about the thin carton of clove cigarettes at the bottom of his pocket.

Even as the gossip went on, he began to feel less and less attached to it. It wasn't his problem, it was a different time, a different Pip that had somehow gotten himself caught in the middle of teenage drama.

"P-Pip!"

He looked up from reviewing his lines to see Tweek standing next to him, his stage crew headset on and in hands clasped together in front of him, the line of his shoulders jumping a little with every twitch.

"Hello, Tweek," Pip said, smiling brightly. It came so easy, he could barely feel it. "Is there something I can do for you?"

Tweek twitched, although Pip noticed that it was rather minor compared to Tweek's normal state, which usually consisted of constant shivering and frequent facial tics. "C-can I talk to you, _in p-private_?" he asked, his voice sounding almost composed. He pointed a timid finger towards the door on the other end of the rehearsal room. "Maybe over in the-the prop room?"

Pip frowned. "We're going on in 30 minutes…" he said hesitantly.

"It won't take long!" Tweek insisted, failing to completely control the volume of his voice.

Pip shrugged, although still a little wary. "Alright, lead the way, ol' chap." There was a liquid feeling creeping in at the edges of his chest, a sense of sickening weightlessness, as if the floor had fallen out from under him, gradually, like peeling back paper-thin layers, but he ignored it and followed the other boy into the cramped prop room.

There wasn't much space to sit, but they found a fake rock in the corner to plant themselves, Tweek sitting at the top while Pip took a curved ledge further down, which forced him to turn his upper body around to meet Tweek's eyes.

For a moment, they sat in complete silence, Tweek's mouth pressed against his knees where they were drawn up to his chest. He looked as if he were thinking very intently about something and Pip was almost afraid of the intensity in his gaze.

Just as Pip was about to say something to break the long stretch of stillness, Tweek spoke up, his voice sounding so fragile in the silence of the prop room.

"Craig wanted to apologize to you."

Pip blinked, taken aback. "Oh, well," he said before he could catch himself. He stopped, trying to think of something to follow up with, to avoid leaving the words hanging awkwardly between them. He struggled to think back, to recall if Craig had actually done anything to warrant an apology. "Nothing to apologize for," he said once he had gathered his wits. He looked away, gazing at an old rocking chair sitting against one of the walls, half covered in shadow. "I'm sure Craig didn't mean any of the things he said to me-"

"Everyone wonders why Craig stayed with me," Tweek interrupted, his voice uncharacteristically quiet and contemplative. Pip looked up to see that Tweek had looked away this time, but his _eyes…_

They were serene and a very slight smile graced his lips.

Silence fell between them again, but it was less oppressive this time, more deliberate and meaningful. Even so, Pip felt he had to break it or it might break him.

"Yes, it is rather curious, I suppose, that he would stay if…" Pip felt his throat close up, his mouth sticky and his tongue feeling swollen. He swallowed, nearly failed, and then swallowed again. He went back to staring at the rocking chair. The fluid had crept up into his lungs now; his heart was floating in it. "…if the rumor is true," he said in a thin whisper.

At that moment, Pip realized that he didn't want it to be. With all of his heart, he wanted Tweek to tell him it was all a lie.

And it scared him because he didn't even remember when everything had turned itself upside down and the past week had been brushed away like so much worthless debris.

Tweek was looking right back at him when Pip finally willed his eyes away from the dusty old chair. Tweek lifted his head to perch his chin atop his knees. Pip could only describe the look on the young man's face as _fond_.

"Craig is…" Tweek began, pausing for a moment and smiling a little more. He went on, his tics so slight that Pip almost could't detect them, "…there. Without my pills, without meditation, it feels like the whole world is barreling into me and ripping itself away again. Whenever I'm with Craig, it's like I can hold on." Pip's fingers tightened into fists on his thighs. He thought that if the sensation in his chest welled up any further, he'd drown in it and Tweek's words just keep pulling the floodgates open. "Craig calms me. I can do things now that I couldn't before. The world…is open to me, because of him. And that scares me…sometimes…" Tweek trailed off, looking downward as the smile slipped off his face. He began to shake a little and Pip began to raise a hand to reach out to the boy, to calm him, but Tweek's voice cut through his every thought.

"I didn't sleep with him," Tweek said firmly, trying to force his tics and twitches back. "But…I did offer."

Pip was vaguely aware of Wendy calling out to everyone in the rehearsal room, but at that moment, everything was suddenly of secondary importance to _Damien never slept with him_.

But, all of a sudden, Tweek's eyes were watery and a few twitches ran through him and Pip felt paralyzed to the spot, trying and failing to collect his thoughts together in a coherent set.

"Craig used to boss me around a lot when we were kids," Tweek continued, sounding wound up and a little hurt. "And with me joining the-the play, he kept telling me to hang out and to spend time with him and…I remembered all those times. I think I wanted to feel like I was in control of something. I completely forgot that I already was."

"Where the hell are Pip and Tweek?!" Pip heard Wendy holler from beyond the prop room door and Pip began to stand up to go but Tweek grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. Pip opened his mouth to protest, but,

"You aren't happy, Pip," Tweek blurted out. "You aren't happy. I was in control because I helped Craig enjoy himself once in awhile. I don't know if…if Craig and I will make it through this, but even if we don't, Craig won't forget about me. There's a lot of history, a lot of things we need to work out, and a lot of it is bad, a lot of it hurts, and it's not going to go away. But a lot of it is happy and…that won't go away either. He'll remember me, because I made him happy."

Pip frowned, felt he was teetering on the edge of some precipice he couldn't see. "Why are you telling me all this?"

Tweek smiled again, finally, and before he even spoke, Pip knew that everything was about to come unravelled around him and he honestly couldn't stop it.

And he didn't think he wanted to.

"You should go after what makes you happy, Pip, even if it hurts sometimes. Because you aren't happy playing it safe like this. I know you aren't."

Pip only had a few seconds to process the impact of those words before Wendy burst in, her hair messily pulled back with a clip at the back of her head, errant strands already falling all around her face, and shrieked at them all that they were 10 minutes to curtain and they should get their asses in gear right now! Pip didn't even register Cartman making kissing noises and obscene gestures at him and Tweek as they both emerged from the prop room. It took all of Pip's will power not to bolt out of there right now and run straight home. He couldn't handle this. Not right now. It felt like freedom but it felt like _too much_.

He was on auto-pilot up until his first lines, the world muffled in his ears and his body seemingly separate from his consciousness. But then he was on stage, Shakespeare was on his lips, and he felt himself slip into someone else's skin and he tucked himself away again into the world of Banquo, where Pip Pirrup's troubles were far, far away.

The performance went off without a hitch and Pip was too busy between scene changes and makeup touch ups to think too much, but when the cast all came forward to do their bows, when the house lights were up and Pip could see through the blinding glare of the spotlights, he caught a lone figure standing in the back next to the exit, hands in his coat pockets and a cream-colored scarf draped around his neck, head ducked down slightly to hide the greenish bruise still sprawled along his jaw and the minor swelling of his lower lip.

Damien.

Damien had come to watch him.

Shakespeare was a hollow echo in his chest now. _This_ was full and rich and powerful, like a resounding gong or the clang of cathedral bells.

When Pip watched him slip silently out the exit, somehow he knew they had seen one another looking, and it was like the sound was calling him along to follow.

Just before Pip's parents swooped in to praise their son and take him home, Tweek was muttering hurriedly and shoving a mess of papers into Pip's shaking hands.

"Damien needs those for our project," he explained as Craig tried to drag him away. There was a glimmer of a smile in Tweek's eyes, very different from the somewhat nervous and giddy smile on his lips. "Can you drop them off at his house for me?"

Tweek didn't even wait for a reply. When he turned and walked away, Pip watched the two of them leave thinking to himself that the sight of their joined hands, even in all the uncertainty and damage that surrounded them, was the most beautiful thing Pip had ever seen.

Pip dreamt that he was being robbed.

Over the years, Pip had learned how to escape the torment of teasing. Whenever someone tried to hurt him, he would simply float away, leave himself for a time, put on a brave face and let the blows fall on an empty vessel. They would call him names, spit on him, and do whatever they could to humiliate him, but it was alright, because he was never really there.

* * *

><p>Pip dreamt that he was being robbed.<p>

He dreamt that the same fists that left bruises on his chest and back would claw their way inside, taking away every little piece of himself, everything inside of him, until he felt so light and hollow, he thought he would crumble and dissolve at any moment.

He felt numb, weightless, empty. His skin was like paper, his body nothing but a bubble. The tiniest poke was likely to make him burst.

Pip dreamt that he was being robbed.

When it was all over, he had nothing left to go back to but emptiness and a world where he could feel nothing and no one could ever come to visit.

He woke in a cold sweat to see the sky turning purple and blood red in the moments before another chilly South Park dawn. From his pillow, he could see his jacket hanging on the back of his closet door, a red blotch standing out on the lapel. On his nightstand, the thin black box gave off a feeble aroma of stale tobacco and clove.

Pip swallowed around the sticky lump in his throat and reached out for the box, curling his fingers around it and holding it against his chest.

He snatched at the little fragments of himself that remained and tucked them securely into that damned box.


	4. Chapter 4

Pip sniffled loudly as he pushed through a downpour of sleet that had surprised him when he got halfway to Damien's apartment. His mother had offered to drive him, but he declined, not wanting to inconvenience her. School had just let out for Christmas break that afternoon and he knew his mother would spend the evening preparing the first of many rich, plentiful, homemade holiday meals, finishing wrapping gifts, and putting together the rest of the Christmas decorations. Asking her to go out of her way to drive him to an apartment that was a 10 minute walk seemed rude, and so Pip had set out on a day that was dreary, but refreshingly crisp and light.

And then, as he'd turned onto Sutter Drive, the sleet had begun to pelt against his face, sticking to his hair and causing it to freeze in clumps against his cheeks, beneath his increasingly damp hat. He shivered and sped up, tucking his messenger bag further under his arm, protecting it from the freezing rain that threatened to seep through the canvas material and ruin the papers he was delivering.

Pip had hoped that the sleet would go as quickly as it had come, but by the time he reached Damien's apartment building 6 minutes later, he was completely soaked through and shivering. A scant 3 cars had passed by him on the way and not a single one had bothered to stop and give him a ride; everyone was either at home for Christmas or still at work.

Pip hated that a little part of him felt happy that those people who had passed him would be able to get home to their families sooner because they hadn't picked him up.

He grimaced as his shoes began to make a slight squelching noise as he ascended the metal stairs to the second floor of the building closest to the road. The only way he had known that was Damien's building was by the red mustang parked out in front, which had led him to the little list of tenants next to the mailboxes where he'd huddled in the small, recessed area to get out of the rain if only for a minute or two. He'd found the name Damien T. on the name plate beside number 13.

Every single door of the apartments looked the same, but the little brass numbers 1 and 3, worn from years of weathering and exposure, seemed to stare down at Pip, putting immense weight on the moment, pulling him in to the drab slate-grey paint of the door. The little overhang above the door kept Pip out of the sleet, which he was grateful for, so for a few seconds, he stood there, delighting in the feeling of not being rained on, even as the wetness spread further throughout his clothing.

He rapped his knuckles on the door, hissing as the impact of his cold fingers against the frigid metal sent white-hot bolts of pain across his skin and down his joints. For a moment, he held his hand out in front of him and stared; he thought that maybe, his fingers were turning blue beneath his fingernails.

Pip wasn't sure how long he stared at his hand, because it seemed like only a second later that the door opened and Damien was standing there, halting on his initial lazy greeting of "Yeah?" as a look of poorly concealed surprised darted across his features. He took in the sight of Pip standing before him, drenched and shivering and clutching a canvas bag to his chest, lips still trying to quirk into a smile even as his teeth chattered.

Damien looked as if he had just rolled out of bed after a 30-odd hour nap. He was wearing a rumpled t-shirt and black sweats that hung low on his hips. His hair was stuck up all on one side, eyes lined with rings of fatigue. His lip was only slightly swollen, the split having nearly healed over. The bruise on his jaw had faded into a nauseating yellow-green and it spread further than Pip had anticipated, all the way from the underside of his chin, nearly to the hinge beside his ear. Craig had really wanted to hurt him…

"Sorry, did I come at a bad time?"

Damien squinted at him like he wasn't sure what he was seeing, as if the question had taken physical form and visually mystified him.

"I don't know," he said, voice gravelly with sleep. "What time is it?"

"Oh, well," Pip looked around, awkwardly, as if he were hoping some timepiece would magically show itself. "I…think it was around 3 when I left, so quarter after?"

Damien nodded vaguely and scratched at his side, the other hand on the doorframe to hold his weight as he leaned to the side. When he leaned forward, towards Pip, the blond caught the smell of sweat and ash, the scent of a long dead fire and stagnation. It was repulsive and alluring at the same time and Pip felt his cheeks heat, warming his chilled skin only for a moment.

They stared at each other for a few awkward seconds, Damien frowning and eyes heavy-lidded, Pip hyperalert and tense from the cold. Beyond Damien's figure, the apartment was dim, although Pip could make out a very comfortable-looking couch and a red rug that Pip just knew would feel soft and warm beneath his feet.

"So?"

"Yes?" Pip squeaked, not realizing his attention had wandered.

Annoyance began to creep into Damien's expression and he sighed before he said, "What do you want? I haven't got all day to stand here and watch you stare at me."

Pip opened his mouth and closed it again, soundlessly, once, twice, before he finally recalled why he had come in the first place.

"Tweek!" he exclaimed, unable to fight back the way he flinched at the name alone, feeling something twinge painfully deep inside of him. He pushed the feeling back, tearing his eyes away from Damien's to dig into his bag for the stack of papers. He had already seen the flicker of confusion in the other boy's eyes and he was terrified at facing it right now. "He wanted me to bring these to you," he said, holding the papers out to Damien in a wet, shaking hand.

"Ah," Damien sighed, reaching out to take the papers and looking vaguely concerned at Pip's drenched state. "For the project, right? Well, I'll definitely get right on this," he added sarcastically.

Pip watched him thumb through the papers with a slight frown. Staring at Damien, he felt the weight of the small box of cigarettes in his pocket, suddenly and abruptly. He resisted the urge to stick his hand in his jacket and wrap his fingers around the box, but the memories that lurked in the back of his mind, like so much scar tissue, light but littered about like so much clutter. Pip wanted to sweep it away; he wanted to cling to this weight, let it anchor him down.

He remembered watching Damien drive away from his home, his car a blood red streak under the glow of the streetlights. He remembered feeling buzzed and weightless at Wendy's party, struggling to hold on and finding a discreet handhold in the form of a little black box. He remembered watching Damien come towards him in the hall, watching him running away, how his eyes had been drawn to the door he'd gone through. Something had been calling out to him from that door, something like pain and sadness and regret. He remembered the line of Damien's shoulders as he had slipped from the school auditorium, half hidden in slanted shadows and his long, black coat, his hair slipping in front of his eyes.

Pip had felt something _heavy_ in it all, something weighty and substantial in the dark of that gaze, the folds of his jacket, the dark lie of his clove cigarettes.

There might be something to the weight. Maybe letting go of that role, letting go of that world of playacting he had been inhabiting for years in this tenuous, not-really-a-friendship that they had, would give way to something substantial and deep and _real._

"Why did you come to the play?" he asked, letting the words spill from his mouth, the rain suddenly becoming a muffled hiss about his head, like the sound of static on a television.

Damien looked up from the papers in his hand and, in that moment, Pip felt the same thing he had felt when he had pulled him off of Craig. It was a skittish and twitchy energy, building and building, searching desperately for an outlet, like static electricity burning in the tips of their fingers.

Damien frowned, tilted his head a little and the gaze they'd held was broken. The feeling of something huge and overpowering bearing down upon them eased back, leaving Pip feeling tired and drained, as if he were now carrying the debris of the receding tide on his shoulders.

"You're soaked," Damien remarked, stepping a little further forward, until his toes brushed the threshold, hovering on the border between his wooden floorboards and the cold, wet concrete of the apartment balcony. "Did you walk all the way here?" He sounded mildly disbelieving.

Pip had been ready to admit that, yes, he had walked, half of it in the pouring rain, but the tone in Damien's voice left him feeling inexplicably embarrassed and he felt his throat close up as he tried to speak. "It wasn't all that far, and it didn't rain the whole way."

Damien scoffed, but it was a gentle sound that somehow put Pip at ease and Damien stepped aside, waving his arm in a gesture that almost looked like he was trying to sweep the blond inside. "Come on, you can dry off in here and I'll drive you back."

Pip took a step back, out of Damien's grasp. He didn't want to go in; he hadn't even realized until now that he had an image of Damien's life outside of school and he really didn't want it to change. It was easier that way. "No, it's alright. Mum is expecting me for dinner anyway-"

"You're gonna kill yourself," Damien insisted, looking as determined as ever, a rare furrow developing between his eyebrows. "Just come in and dry off or something."

But Pip shook his head, taking another step back until the rain was dripping on his head again and he shivered despite himself. "Really, I should get going." He didn't think he could do this; he felt so drained already, so impossibly empty and feeble, he couldn't handle the extra weight of it all, of the thick shadows that he spied behind Damien in the corners of the apartment, of the thick red rug and the sleek black leather of the couch-

But then Damien had huffed out a breath through his nostrils and leaned all the way out the door and the little bit of sunlight that broke through the murky clouds caught on Damien's features and whatever Pip had been about to say found itself in a gruesome pileup in his throat, stunned and incapacitated.

Damien's fingers closed around his wrist and yanked him forcefully inside, closing the apartment door behind him.

The light was gone. The apartment was somewhat darkened. The blinds had been partially drawn on the single window. Pip felt like he could breathe again. He stood with his back to the door and shivered, water dripping from his hair and hat onto the worn mat underneath his feet.

Pip felt a strange sort of powerlessness, standing just inside Damien's apartment, surrounded by unfamiliar sights and smells, not knowing where to run, where to hide, whether to stay or leave or sit or stand. It was something confusing, a mess of anxiety and nerves and the knowledge that something unpredictable might happen at any moment.

But…it didn't feel entirely wrong.

And that scared Pip more than anything.

How could something so strange, so detached, so very far away from him feel so close? So much like home?

"Damien," Pip began, the name hanging uncertainly in the air, unsure of what's to follow it.

But Damien relieved the blond of the necessity of finishing his statement, because without even waiting for the okay, he stripped Pip of his coat and newsboy cap and gloves, grimacing in disgust at the feeling of sopping wet corduroy and wool. "Don't move, I'll get you a towel."

And Pip didn't move, mostly because everything after that seemed to happen in a flash. Damien came back, draped the towel over his head and scrubbed furiously at his hair. He wrapped his hands in the slightly damp cloth and rubbed them back and forth to warm his fingers. He was being pushed to sit down on the floor in front of the coffee table while Damien muttered something about not ruining his leather couch. The whole time Damien kept his eyes trained elsewhere, dark and enigmatic. Pip kept waiting for the annoyance to pop into his expression, even gratitude or guilt, but the other boy was calm and still, and against his better judgment, Pip felt himself falling into the rhythm of his movements, of his hands and his head and his shoulders rocking back and forth with the push and pull of Damien's hands fisted in the towel.

It all seemed to happen in a series of moments, flashes of action that Pip seemed to be viewing outside of himself, each one opening before him and fading away as rhythmic as breathing, like the red glow at the end of Damien's clove cigarettes. He could smell that sweet-spicy smoke, it was all around him. He could practically taste it on his tongue. He could fan the spark a little, see it glow and jump into a flame. Or he could let it burn out, watch as the pulsing ember receded into cold ash.

_**(He flicked the cigarette away. It landed almost, but not quite, in an oily puddle nearby, still steadily smoking on the asphalt. **_

_**The red glow at the end flickered unsteadily, stagnating and dying as it burned up the last of the clove and tobacco.)**_

Damien froze, his barely audible breaths suddenly going quiet. His grip on Pip's left hand tightened so much it almost hurt even through the numb chill. It took Pip a split second to come back to himself, to realize that the hand that he'd watched reaching up to touch Damien's face was his own.

Damien stared straight at him, mouth a straight line. Pip hadn't noticed just how close they were to each other like this, so close he could see the slightest hints of color in Damien's eyes, could see each individual eyelash, could see the hint of stubble starting beneath his pale skin.

"You gonna do something with that hand?" he said in a low, menacing voice.

Pip faltered, hesitating on the words. The bruised skin of the underside of Damien's jaw left only the faintest traces of warmth through the pins-and-needles sensation filling Pip's fingers. Everything tasted like clove cigarettes. The taste was imprinting itself in his mind, latching itself to the feel of Damien's jaw against his fingers, the sound of his voice, the smell of his skin and hair, the glint of the streetlights and the reflection of a face in his dark tinted sunglasses.

Why him? Why, out of everyone, did he keep coming back to Damien? Why, when he could find no logic, no rhythm, no explanation for the heavy feeling in his chest, weighing him down and filling him up? Why did he continue clinging to a little black box in his pocket, to something that wasn't even a friendship?

_"Thought you _had_ died at first. I shook you but you didn't wake up."_

_"You shouldn't. They're not good for you. They'd end up killing you."_

_"Look, I promise I'm not going to steal your soul or slice your throat or anything."_

"_Come on, you can dry off in here and I'll drive you back."_

_"I didn't ask you to help me."_

And just like that, it hit him.

"I'm not afraid of you," he murmured.

One slim eyebrow curved upwards. "You should be," Damien said lowly. He still hadn't loosened his grip on Pip's hand and feeling was beginning to flood back to the appendage, slowly registering the growing pain.

"Maybe," Pip responded softly. Damien bowed his head again as he began to rub at Pip's hands and fingers, a little more harshly this time. Pip smiled, a nervous, uncertain little thing. "But you don't want me to be, do you?"

Damien jerked his head gently back from Pip's fingertips and Pip could almost feel the loss of connection like the pop of a lightbulb going dead. He let go of Pip's now-warmed hand and took hold of the other, forcefully lowering it away from his face. "For a guy who tries to play the part of the martyr, you're pretty fucking selfish."

In truth, Pip had never seriously thought of himself as self-sacrificing, but that didn't change the fact that Damien's comment _did_ set a feeling of indignation blooming hotly in his chest.

"I never said I was-" Pip's words turned abruptly into a sharp hiss as Damien drove his thumb between then tendons of his pinkie and ring finger along the back of his hand. Underneath the layer of frozen numbness, a deep ache flowed in. Damien's eyes were aflame now, not with anger but with something hotter and more dangerous.

"Just because I live in this pathetic hick town," he began, his voice a gravelly rumble, "doesn't mean I'm an idiot. My entire life's purpose is to get people to make bad choices. You could have told Tweek to give me the papers himself. You could have had someone drive you. You could have thrown those papers into a puddle and gone straight home."

Pip swallowed hesitantly. He chewed at his lip, eyes flitting down towards his hand. His fingers twitched in pain, his arm shaking, but he didn't dare speak up. "That wouldn't have been right."

Damien scoffed quietly. The freezing rain pelted the apartment's darkened windows with muffled _splats_. "Let me just tell you the one thing I've learned in my time on this Earth." He leaned in closer, although that seemed impossible as all the space between them had been sucked into some black, bottomless pit in Pip's abdomen. When he spoke, Damien's breath was hot on his cheeks. Just as Pip thought, the smell of clove was there, beneath the coffee and the morning breath.

"There is no _right thing_. There's just you and that warm, fuzzy feeling in your belly when you go to bed. And the more you let this town trample all over you, the more abuse you're going to need to get that warm, fuzzy feeling back, to make you feel good about yourself. Because then you can tell yourself that it's okay. It's okay because you never stepped on any toes. It's okay because you never hurt anyone else. You know what kind of people don't make waves?"

Pip was holding his breath against the pain now. As Damien spoke, his grip on his hand seemed to get tighter and tighter. Sweat mixed with melted sleet on his forehead. He gave a small shake of his head.

"_Dead people_."

Damien practically threw Pip's hand away from him. The blond immediately cradled it against his chest as the dull ache turned into a sharp twinge.

"If you're going to do nothing but keep your mouth shut and your head down instead of actually doing something that matters to you, you might as well be dead." He gathered up the wet towels and walked away, leaving Pip to sit in stunned silence, staring at the floor.

Pip _wanted_ to say something. He'd always tried. The other kids just…they spat at him and called him names and did horrible things to him. And he _liked_ being alone sometimes. It made things easier, it made it…

It made it safer. With no one around, there was nothing to destroy. You can't be robbed without a robber. But with nothing to steal, all he had was an empty box.

Damien returned carrying an old jacket that looked a bit too big for Pip's somewhat scrawny frame and a black and red striped beanie.

"Here," he said, his voice having softened slightly as he held the items out to the blond.

Pip stared at them for a moment, his mind a sudden blur of activity. He imagined he had never found his way to the back of that Walmart. He wondered how many nights Damien would have stood there, smoking his cigarettes, staring out at that endless white abyss.

"Hello? Did you hear me?" Damien said, shaking the hat and jacket in Pip's face.

Pip reached out and took the clothes, his fingers slowly curling into the warm fabric, his brow furrowed.

"You might as well be dead too," he said quietly.

Damien stared at him for a moment. "How about 'Thanks for the jacket, Damien. Now I won't freeze to death.'"

Pip looked up and met the other boy's gaze, some kind of courage akin to insanity bubbling up in his belly. "If I might as well be dead, then so should you," he insisted, a little louder this time.

"And why is that?"

Pip chewed at his lip thoughtfully as he rose to his feet. "You came to the play. You drove me home. You…" He let out a soft laugh, looking down at his feet. "You wouldn't just let me walk home." He couldn't fight back the somewhat triumphant smile that spread across his lips. "You keep saying I do this to feel good about myself, but…you're just doing it so you can turn me away, aren't you?"

Never had such an awful realization felt so good. The way Damien's eyes went just a little wider for a split second, the way his chest almost imperceptibly jumped with a slight hiccup told him he was right.

"If you wanted everyone to treat you like you shouldn't exist…then I guess you might as well be dead."

* * *

><p>Damien didn't come back to school after Christmas break ended. Pip had come to school with a tightness in his chest, unsure of whether he was desperate to see if his last words to Damien had had some life-altering effect or dreading the backlash of indifference he would receive.<p>

It turned out not to matter at all. Damien didn't show up on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or even Friday. During lunch, Pip took the long way to practice for the spring musical, just so he could pass by the spot Damien normally took his smoke breaks in the hidden alcoves and alleys around the old high school. Each time, he felt a mix of relief and disappointment at seeing no one standing there, clouds of smoke and breath rising up into the crisp blue sky.

When Pip had left Damien's place that evening, Damien had been oddly quiet, had avoided looking Pip in the eyes. There was a slump to his shoulders that Pip had never seen, a stony cynicism that blocked him out.

It hadn't been until that moment that Pip realized that Damien _had_ been letting him in, even in little ways. It hadn't been until Pip had been completely locked out that he'd realized that Damien had been trying, possibly, in some small way, in some twisted, cruel way, to _help._

Pip had meant to give Damien's jacket and hat back to him, had even considered going over to Damien's apartment to give it to him. It sat folded neatly in a stack on top of his dresser in the corner of his room. But something in the way Damien had shown him out of his apartment, without saying a word, without offering to drive him, the red flecks of his dark irises glowing faintly, like embers ready to burst to flame, had kept him away. Pip consistently reminded himself that Damien was a boy, yes, but was also the son of Satan, the ultimate evil. There had been more demon in Damien than boy when Pip had left. He didn't want to see what Damien might have become in the time they had been apart.

He tried to stay focused on his studies, tried to ignore the murmurs of rumor that drifted through the halls. Craig concluded Damien must have ended up dead in a ditch somewhere and the world was better off for it. Kenny predicted he'd skipped town to go live in North Park instead. Cartman said something crude about him being a "homo like his dad" and that he was probably "living in San Francisco with the other homos."

Pip was in his geometry class when the PA system called him down to the counselor's office. Ms. Baker was scrawling the Parallel Postulate on the whiteboard with dry erase marker when Principal Victoria's voice came on over the speakers.

Pip could feel everyone's eyes on him as he walked out of the room. Despite all the rumors, most of the students and teachers at Park County High School had come to the conclusion that whatever happened to Damien, Pip most likely had something to do with it.

Even Pip couldn't shake the feeling that they were right and something deep down inside of him resented them all for it.

"Take a seat, Mr. Pirrup, mkay?" Mr. Mackey said as Pip entered the man's office. Principal Victoria sat in a chair against the opposite wall. The school's police liaison, Officer Barbrady, stood beside her.

Pip shifted uncomfortably as he sat in the middle of their worried, yet scrutinizing gazes. He felt like each of them in turn expected something from him, something he didn't have the capacity to give.

"Is there something wrong, Mr. Mackey?" he asked, forcing a small smile to his face as the counselor took a seat behind his desk.

Mr. Mackey sighed slightly, lacing his fingers together. "Pip, would you say you're close friends with Damien Thorn?"

Pip hesitated for a moment, a little baffled by the question himself. What exactly _was he_ to Damien? They certainly weren't friends. There was far too much bad blood between the two of them. Too many cruel pranks, too many harsh words. So why did he feel a sense of warmth sparking deep down at the mention of his name?

"Not really, no," Pip said slowly, glancing around at the concerned adult faces that surrounded him.

"Your parents tell us that you visited him before Christmas break," Principal Victoria chimed in. "They say you went over to his place of residence to speak with him about the work he's been missing."

"Yes, Tweek asked me to give him some things." He frowned as Principal Victoria nodded to Officer Barbrady, who wrote something down on a notepad. "Is something wrong? Do you know where Damien is?"

All three adults shared unreadable glances. "We thought you might know where he was, Mr. Pirrup," Mr. Mackey said slowly. "Damien Thorn hasn't been seen in South Park for two weeks now. We understand Damien's living situation is…_unique_, so it has been difficult for us to locate him."

Unique meaning 'son of the ultimate evil,' Pip was tempted to say, but he remembered his mother telling him it was rude to blurt out things that others obviously were uncomfortable talking about.

"Has he been in contact with you at all, little boy?" Officer Barbrady asked. "No phone calls, no after school meetings, no night time rendezvouses?"

Pip's eyes went wide as the suggestion of the officer's words sank in. "_Excuse me?_"

Principal Victoria smacked Officer Barbrady's elbow, her forehead furrowed in annoyance. Mr. Mackey tried to draw the attention back to the matter at hand.

"Pip, if you've been communicating with Damien, it's important that you let us know. I know you might want to protect Damien, but we only want what's best for him, just as I'm sure you do."

Pip felt something burning now in his chest, something that had started out as a reassuring warmth but had quickly grown into a blazing fire. He had felt this before, this anger, but had never once let it free. He was so used to keeping it suppressed, smothering it, returning to a sense of pleasant numbness.

But this fire made him feel _alive_.

"I'm not Damien's _anything!"_ Pip exclaimed jumping to his feet. "I've got no idea where he is and I don't bloody care! All Damien has done is ridicule me, insult me, and torture me. What on Earth would make you think that I could feel _anything_ for someone like that?!"

"Pip, calm down!" Principal Victoria insisted, rising. "We're simply trying to find a child who has gone missing."

"Let him go missing!" Pip continued, unsure of where his words came from, only knowing they came from some untapped place of energy and emotion he'd forgotten was there. "If he wants everyone in this town to hate him, then why should we drag him back?! We were all perfectly fine with pretending we didn't notice his dad was the ruler of Hell, that the whole purpose of his existence is to get people to sin. So now that he's gone, we all have to pretend like we even _cared?!_ No one cared when he went missing the first time! Everyone thought he was better off staying missing! I was the only one who thought he might come back! Did any of you even bother to go looking at his apartment? Did you go by every hidden corner of the building to see if he was smoking there? No! None of you even bothered to check! Only I-" Pip faltered, his energy suddenly draining away. He'd never raised his voice to an adult before, never threw a temper tantrum or resisted authority. He was acutely aware of the disapproval behind the stunned silence of his counselor and principal. He was also uncomfortably aware that he did care. That some small part of him wanted Damien back as badly as he wanted him gone. "Only I went to look for him…" he said, his voice choking a bit at the end. He swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat, the burn spreading from his chest and up his throat to the backs of his eyes. "I don't know where he is, but I wish I did."

Heart pounding and something wet collecting at the corners of his eyes, Pip sank heavily back into his seat. Officer Barbrady scrawled something into his notepad before closing it and stepping out of the room. An awkward silence stretched on between the three of them.

"Perhaps we should call your parents, mkay," Mr. Mackey finally said, reaching for the phone.  
>Pip shook his head. "No, please don't, I don't want them to worry." He wiped at his eyes and pulled his lips back into a fresh smile. "I'm alright. I promise."<p>

Mr. Mackey and Principal Victoria seemed unconvinced, but said nothing.

"May I go now?"

A moment's hesitation, and then Mr. Mackey nodded. Pip stood and walked out of the door. As soon as he was out of the counselor's office, he ducked into the nearest bathroom, locked himself in one of the stalls, and waited for the painful fire in his chest to burn itself out.

* * *

><p>"Alright, students, we'll be starting <em>The Crucible<em> next week so we'll need to put you into partners to work on your next English project," Ms. Jacobs' announced on Monday the next week. "So, say 'goodbye' to your old partners and 'hello' to a new adventure!" She flashed a glittering smile at the class, who mostly just rolled their eyes and half-heartedly said "goodbye" to their former partner by means of a lazy wave or fistbump. Pip, who hadn't even had a partner, simply sat quietly, waiting for his assignment. Ms. Jacobs hadn't even known he'd worked by himself. She had paired him up with a by named Andrew who had moved away from South Park to live with his dad in Seattle only 3 days after they had been assigned to work together. Pip simply hadn't had the heart to speak up and he assumed that becoming the third wheel with some other pair of students would only result in all the work being dumped on him anyway. He was much happier on his own. As Ms. Jacobs went through the names, Pip glanced at the empty seat just in front of him. Where Damien would have sat. He'd been absent during the last seating chart change as well and students had already surreptitiously rearranged themselves over the past few days to position themselves closer to their friends, leaving the seat vacant.

Ms. Jacobs finished with her partner assignments – Kyle had been paired up with a student who was scheduled to arrive on Thursday from some private school in France and Cartman found his greatest dream coming true by being paired up with Wendy. It took Ms. Jacobs a few moments to realize she hadn't announced Pip's name at all.

"Oh, Pip! I'm sorry, it seems I left you off the list." She bit her lip, her cheeks flushing slightly at the mistake. Ms. Jacobs was somewhat new, only in her third year of teaching, still accustomed to being embarrassed by mistakes that other teachers would simply shrug off and blame on a particularly bad-mannered student. "Let's see who I can pair you with."

Pip was about to speak up, to let Ms. Jacobs know that he was perfectly fine working by himself, when there was a knock at the classroom door. Bebe, who sat closet to the door, got up to open it.

The universe could have arranged things to make an infinite number of events happen at that particular moment. A counselor, a parent, or another teacher could have entered the room. It could have been to deliver a message, ask for copies, or even a new student lost on his first day in the building. But the universe seemed to be saying something to Pip, something loud and harsh and difficult to hear, but something of monumental importance.

Damien stepped into the classroom, a notebook under his arm and a yellow hall pass in hand.

"Damien and I can be partners!" Pip blurted out as Ms. Jacobs stepped forward to take the pass from him.

Damien stared at him across the room, eyes widened in surprise, filled with something that could have been hate, fear, uncertainty…

Pip's breath froze in his lungs, waiting for the universe around him to make a decision. He waited to see something appear in that great sea of white, something to wash back up to his feet, or something to drag him out into the endless emptiness forever.

Damien blinked, the look in his eyes gone as quick as it had come, and shrugged. "Sure, whatever," he said as Ms. Jacobs took the pass from him.

He walked to the back of the classroom and took the empty seat in front of Pip. As the rest of the students turned and began discussing project ideas with their partners, Pip tried to quell the shaking in his hands. He tucked them into his lap, pretending to be engrossed with the Foreword to the school's copy of _The Crucible_.

Damien turned and Pip waited for some remark of why he wouldn't be participating in this particular class project or how he'd indirectly ratted him out to the juvie officer.

"So, should we start on this next week or do you want to work on it on Wednesday after your musical rehearsal?"

Pip's head jerked up, almost unsure of who it was that was speaking to him. Damien looked back, the human Damien, the demon inside tamed down, simmering harmlessly underneath. There was a quiet surrender in his posture, not humiliated or defeated, but like a hand held outstretched, waiting for someone to take it.

Pip wanted to take it. Desperately, which he was surprised to realize. But he erred on the side of caution. "I thought you were dead," he said honestly, quietly.

Damien looked away, shrugging slightly, a hint of a smile on his lips. "I could say the same thing about you."

Pip's fingers curled tight around his own thigh. This had "bad news" written all over it. Damien was violent, unpredictable, lackadaisical. He was neither reliable nor a hard-worker. Pip had no reason to trust him and Damien had no reason to help.

He could have been stepping right into his worst nightmare.

Damien reached into his pocket and placed a little black box on the page of Pip's book. "These were in your jacket pocket," he said quietly. "Totally ruined, by the way. Soaking wet and old as hell. Nearly threw up when I lit one of them."

Damien stared at him and Pip stared right back. This thing between them that hovered along the border of real and imagined, a wish and a promise, began slowly to settle. Even with the uncertainty and insecurity, it felt more real to Pip than anything else.

Pip looked up to make sure Ms. Jacobs wasn't watching before he snatched the box and quickly shoved them into his pocket. He meant to draw his hand out after, but instead, he relished in the feeling of curling his fingers around them, slotting into the dents he'd made in the box from the many times he done just that.

Pip smiled, the fire reigniting within his chest, the smell of clove cigarettes rising around him.

"Wednesday will be fine," he said.


End file.
